Lately I've found myself fishing for players. So if your game is the hook that keeps players on your site or paying their subscription or just plain interested in what your doing what is a good bait? What are some of the techniques that you guys have used to get people to find your games? Which types of games get more users?

If the game is good enough, players will keep playing and tell their friends.

There are players for every type of game.

enter the IGF and other indie game development public competitions or such things. You can try and get on the Humble BundleIf its full fledged enough, you can always try getting Steam to pick it up. Though unless you know someone or it meets a certain "appearance" of their standards, its very hard to get in.

If its a smaller applet, there are numerous sites out there that host java games, similiar to kongregate or newgrounds and try to make sure your apps have somewhere your main page/website information.

edit, since your in a java forum, assuming your game(s) are you in java. There tend to be less available "games" on mac or linux, so checking into those avenues for marketing is a lot easier then marketing to the massive windows crowd, IMHO

Just keep making and producing games that are fun to play and that you enjoy making. Don't try to make a game that will draw in the crowds, for the sole purpose of drawing in the crowds.

Just keep making and producing games that are fun to play and that you enjoy making. Don't try to make a game that will draw in the crowds, for the sole purpose of drawing in the crowds.

These are wise words that I think many newbies (and non-newbies) should learn. Write programs that you enjoy. Write programs that a couple of your friends might enjoy, but never force the issue. Don't worry about getting rich and famous, because you won't. Don't try to invent the next minecraft/wow/facebook, because you won't (and even then, the best case scenario is you wrote a clone of something else). Have fun. Learn. Be creative. Don't worry about anything else.

Lately I've found myself fishing for players. So if your game is the hook that keeps players on your site or paying their subscription or just plain interested in what your doing what is a good bait? What are some of the techniques that you guys have used to get people to find your games? Which types of games get more users?

Ask yourself: is "Angry Birds" really different from 1000's of other games? My answer would be no. It's well done,but there are many games in the same same equivalence class. Maybe the authors could cite reasons why they'rebetter, but it would all be post-hoc and not useful to predict the next success. For all practical purposes, all youcan say is that they got lucky.

You can never depend on getting lucky, and it's not a good business plan or life plan. So I agree 100% with thecomments that you should do what you like above all. If having actual players is what's important to you, then definitelyattach yourself to some existing site and borrow the eyeballs there.

Luck has nothing to do with it. It is all market size and marketing. Many companies have made some really bad games very popular and profitable.

How small studio like Rovio could out do every other mobile app companies at marketing? They was almost bankrupt before Angry Birds started to sell lot's of copies. They have luck at start and then they used their 15minutes at fame better than others and stayed on top. Their success was luck and skills not money.

They had 42 million vs my 0. Ha.. I am killing them vs investment yet I can't get a dime.

42 million is not a small studio to me. In fact that is about what Zynga got in their first round.

over 40 people. Small?

You are referring wrong numbers. Those are after success. Rovio released Angry birds at february 2010. They didn't have any money at then. They have done over 50 games before so this isn't like their first title. After Angry Birds success they received lot of funding and started agressive recruiting. We maybe get more inside stories here at Finland but search even at wikipedia before doing that kind of empty claims.

F**k Angry Birds. That game is the antithesis to Minecraft. A massively, stupidly successful game that has absolutely no innovative or redeemable values. It's just a decent game. It's well made. And that's it. Nothing special. Exactly the same as 3,000 different free Flash physics puzzlers that came before it.

Just keep making and producing games that are fun to play and that you enjoy making. Don't try to make a game that will draw in the crowds, for the sole purpose of drawing in the crowds.

I disagree; if your aim is to get lots of users then you should build it with the aim to get lots of users. If you don't get users, then you've failed your aim and did it wrong. That is not to imply there is a formula, and most (but not all) popular games also tend to be good games (even if they are not that ground breaking), but there are things you can do to help make it more desirable to play.

Angry Birds is a good example. I've played lots of those catapult style games, even before Angry Birds was out. Angry Birds graphics are not that ground breaking, but they are polished, where as most of the clones I have played have always had 'programmers' graphics. The idea of shooting birds is also much more novel then just boring rocks. I'd bet if Angry Birds was just 'Generic Catapult Slinger' with worse graphics then it wouldn't have sold anywhere near as many copies, and it's that sort of thing that I am referring to when I say there are things you can do to make a game more popular.

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